


Twelve Months

by Winter_Waltz



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Lisa is just a distraction sorrynotsorry, M/M, Mentions of Dean/Lisa but dean is pining for Sam and only Sam kay, Post-Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, not exactly a samulet or voicemail fix-it but Dean becomes aware of them both so there's that too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:48:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25038763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winter_Waltz/pseuds/Winter_Waltz
Summary: It’s twelve months after Stull Cemetery, and everything and nothing reminds Dean of Sam....aka the post Swan Song fic where Dean realizes that he said "When I do picture myself happy, it’s with you.” to the wrong person.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 13
Kudos: 66





	Twelve Months

**Author's Note:**

> My first wincest fic!!! And my first time writing for the spn fandom!! I only recently finished watching Swan Song, and I love the episode to bits. So I HAD to write something for it. My writing is really rusty as I haven't witten any fic is YEARS, so please go easy on me ;;-;; This fic was inspired partially by me just wanting to write Dean's anguish over Sam suffering in the cage, and also because I remember laughing my head off when Dean told Lisa his "wHeN I dO iMaGinE mYsELf hApPy" line. Man, what a joke.

It’s twelve months after Stull Cemetery, and everything and nothing reminds Dean of Sam.

The first month, Dean is catatonic. He lies in the bed he now shares with Lisa and stares at the ceiling until dawn breaks through the curtains. He drinks Scotch in the darkness of the kitchen, hunched over the polished kitchen island and letting the smokiness of the drink burn his throat and his thoughts. He ignores the way Ben peeks at him from around the wall while he sits on the couch, TV remote held loosely with numb fingers, eyes seeing but not observing. The cherry pie Lisa bakes him crumbles like sawdust and ash on his tongue.

The second month, prompted by an intervention from Lisa, Dean gets his act together. At least, he tries to. He gets a job as a construction worker. Cooks meals. Stops ignoring Ben when he sits next to Dean on the couch with his Game Boy clutched in his hands. But it all feels so hollow, so fucking meaningless, like he’s just going through the motions. Playing house. Pretending. Some days, he wonders –not for the first time, not for the fifteenth, not for the hundredth- why he ever made that meaningless promise ( _“Promise me.” Sam had said, voice hushed, eyes big and dewy and wide, and Dean could never say no to that face, could never say no to his baby brother_ ). Some days, he remembers leaving Sam in that motel room, tearing down the road in his car, standing at Lisa’s porch. Remembers the words that had left his trembling lips: “When I do picture myself happy, it’s with you.” Words he’d said to Lisa. _Lisa_. And Dean laughs. He laughs and laughs and laughs until he’s sobbing. Lisa finds him on the floor of the kitchen, forehead pressed against the side of the kitchen counter, the front of his shirt soaked with Scotch and his cheeks wet with tears, and she’s kneeling down, gathering him in her arms, shushing him – _“Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay, you’re gonna be just fine,”_ \- and Dean gnashes his teeth and presses his nose deep into her shoulder and stays silent, because the alternative is screaming, shouting, that _no, **nothing** is okay, it’s all a big fucking joke, Ben goes to school and you go to yoga class and I eat pie and watch TV while my baby brother is burning in Hell, HE’S BURNING, SO NOTHING WILL BE FUCKING OKAY NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING_-

The third month, Dean becomes better at pretending. He has barbecue with the neighbors in Lisa’s backyard (never his, never _ours_ , because ours means his and Sam’s; _ours_ means _SamandDean's_ ). He drops Ben off to school. He goes to the bar with friends he’s made who know nothing about him. No more hitting on chicks, though, no matter how plump their lips or low the cut of their dresses are or how much they wink at him as they bend down to deposit drinks on his table. After all, he’s a one-woman man now. ( _Because there’s no more Sammy with him to annoy with his flirtatious antics, no more letting waitresses mark his cheek with lipstick while he surreptitiously watches Sam as he’s hunched over his laptop at some lone corner of the bar. No more hoping to see Sam roll his eyes at him over the lid of the laptop. No more desperately, foolishly hoping that Sam feels the same way for him as Dean does for his Sammy, no more_ Sammy _-)_

The fourth month, “ _This is okay_.” are the words that rise from some hollow space in Dean’s heart as Lisa drops a kiss on his temple while they lay in bed. Sam took a knife and carved out the space when he jumped, or perhaps he took his whole heart with him as he did, because his heart-it-it _burns_. There are fractures in his soul, fissures as wide and deep as the Grand fucking Canyon, and God, he _aches_. Aches for something he’s had all his life and now suddenly lost. (“ _Like soulmates.” Ash had said, then stared at them for a beat, and Dean is a fool, such a fucking_ fool-) And suddenly it’s not okay ( _NOTHING WILL BE FUCKING OKAY NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING-_ ), and he’s turning over, back to Lisa (not even having the energy to feel guilt for the sigh that leaves her lips), staring at the wall until his eyes burn, because closing them means seeing the light of Sam’s dimpled smile tearing through the darkness of his lids, and he- can’t. Just fucking can’t.

The fifth month, Dean finds the amulet at the bottom of Sam’s duffel that’s stashed in Baby’s trunk. It’s buried deep under piles of ratty shirts and jackets and papers and books and knives and Dean loses it, brings white knuckles down onto Baby’s hood until they’re red, the fist shaped indents in the car staring up at him as if in accusation. And Dean’s knees are suddenly giving out, and he’s kneeling, the edges of the amulet that he so cruelly threw away -and Sam picked back up from the bottom of a trashcan- biting into his palm, and Dean’s voice is hoarse as he says, “God, I’m so sorry, baby, so sorry, so _fucking sorry_ -“And he doesn’t have the audacity to pretend that these words are for his _car_.

The sixth month, Ben is out with his friends and Lisa is back home from her yoga class and she’s setting her keys down on the kitchen counter and tasting the scotch on Dean’s mouth as she kisses him –“ _I’m home, Dean_.”- and Dean is suddenly surging forward, catching her bottom lip between his teeth, and she’s unaware of how he desperately tries to find bits and pieces –something, _anything_ \- of Sam in her wide smile, in her long brown hair. Dean rips her shirt off, buttons scattering across the bedroom floor and pinging off the wall, mouthing at her neck and the underside of her jaw and the shell of her ear with an animal kind of hunger that’s born of anguish, but Lisa doesn’t notice that, too busy wrapping her long legs (“ _Not long enough,_ ” some demented part of Dean’s mind whispers) around his waist and moaning in his ear. But even when in the throes of passion, even as she tips over the edge, she can’t not hear the broken and devastated “ _Sammy_ ” that Dean whisper-growls against her collarbone as he bites down and comes. And later that evening, while Dean is asleep under the covers, Lisa strokes the bruises that he’s imprinted on her neck as she stands hunched over the sink, and a newfound realization dawns on her, missing pieces of the puzzle that is Dean suddenly appearing before her and clicking into place.

They don’t fall into bed anymore after that.

Dean doesn’t insist.

The seventh month, Dean’s sat on the edge of his and Lisa’s bed, Lisa doing laundry and Ben eating breakfast downstairs. In his hands is Sam’s phone, numbers on the keypad worn away from use. Dean’s number is still saved under “De”, and God, the ache is back. Like there’s something too big hatching in his ribs, expanding until it crowds the space inside and squeezes his lungs into a corner so that he can’t breathe. But it’s nothing compared to what he feels when he hears one of the voicemails that Sam has saved: “ _Listen to me, you blood-sucking freak-“_ And Dean really truly can’t breathe now. He throws the phone across the room, letting it shatter against the wall and lay on the floor in a cracked heap, a litany of _nonono’s_ screaming through his head as he realizes just why Sam had listened to Ruby, what motherfucking Zachariah had meant by “nudging Sam in the right direction”, why Sam had _flinched_ at the sight of the demon killing knife that Dean had pulled out of his jean pocket to give to him after reuniting with him after his trip to the future. And Dean suddenly wants nothing more than to break every single thing that he sees, wants nothing more than to gather Sam to his chest, wrap his arms around him so tight that he might as well be able to squeeze him inside his rib-cage and keep him tucked next to his heart, safe and sound, where he belongs, away from angels and demons and anything that might ever try to hurt him.

Away from _Hell_.

The eighth month, Dean gets drunk and stands in front of the pews of the local church and screams at a God that isn’t there, light pouring through the stained glass coloring his cheeks death-blue and hellfire-red. His throat is chaffed raw by the alcohol and his shouts, and a priest is trying to calm him down, and Dean is splitting his knuckle to the bone on the man’s front teeth, and a few minutes later, Lisa is there, grasping the collar of his shirt and screaming, screaming at him to calm down, “ _IT’S NO USE DEAN HE WON’T COME BACK DEAN CALM DOWN CALM DOWN CALMTHEFUCKDOWN_ -“, and Dean is uncurling his fists, shoulders sagging, all the fight leaving his body. Lisa, frantic apologies falling from her lips (“ _I’m sorry-he’s been through a lot-PTSD-_ “), dragging him away.

That night, as Dean retches in the bathroom, tears mixing with bile, he wonders why Lisa won’t kick him out already, so that he doesn’t have to keep his stupid promise anymore, so that he can escape without guilt, so that he can say, “Look, Sammy, _I tried, didn’t I_?” So that he can take the impala and go back to hunting and kill and kill and _kill_ until there’s nothing left in him anymore, so that he can drive off a cliff and just end it all. Because what’s the point of being alive? What’s the point if the person he made the promise to isn’t there to see him break it?

But then there’s Lisa’s hand on his back, patting him, soothing, and there’s pills in her palm and coffee in her hand, and this isn’t love- it’s _penance_.

The ninth month, Dean tries to open the cage, and fails, and the pitch black pit inside his stomach continues to yawn wider and wider.

The tenth month, Dean goes to a diner in the next town, alone, and orders a foot long roast-beef sub dripping with gravy for himself and grilled chicken on a multi-grain roll that he makes the confused waitress place across from him on the table. Every once in a while, her eyes stray from her work to the lone man, who has meticulously set the table with napkins and is eating his sandwich with gusto, the seat across from him still empty, and she thinks he’s waiting for someone. But an hour later, the man’s polished off his meal and the seat still remains empty, the sandwich set on the plate across from him sadly wilted, and the man is talking to himself, gazing at the empty seat with soft eyes, and the waitress catches a name between his ceaseless mutterings: “ _Sammy_.” The way he says it makes her feel pity, somehow. And then he goes quiet. Beat. Abruptly, he takes out his wallet, peels off a handful of bills and –before she can rush over with his receipt- tosses them onto the table, the sandwich still there. And then he stands up and trudges out the door, shoulders hunched up to his ears, one fist clenched over something hanging from his neck, and she never sees him again.

The eleventh month, Dean’s sitting on the porch steps, beer bottle held to his lips, watching as Ben kicks around a soccer ball, as Linda from across the street mows her front yard, as a cool breeze whistles through the trees and makes the branches rearrange their shadows upon the asphalt. And he thinks about how Sam sacrificed himself for all this, this world, this life that is nothing like hitting the road and sleeping in the cramped space of a car and spending hours hunched over newspapers in diners and libraries and sifting through obits; this life that means no graveyard dirt beneath his nails and no greasy food or aggressively unhealthy takeout or coffee or a bitching brother who rolls his eyes and smiles at him like Dean hung the moon and the stars for him. And he thinks about how if he could turn back time, if he could be in that salvage yard once again, leaning against the side of the car with that same little brother sat on top of it, gazing up at him with wide, weary, wary eyes, he’d have made a different decision.

At night, he’s wide awake, staring at the ceiling; Lisa curled around him yet providing no warmth. The clock ticks in the darkness of the bedroom. _Tick Tick Tick_. He can’t hear his heartbeat. He thinks it’s not there, his heart. That if he flays his skin from his bones and cracks open his rib-cage and takes a peek inside, he will only see empty space. That he might look like those dead bodies that he and Sam used to look over in the morgues. Some hollow part of him wonders if he should salt and burn his own bones, because he feels like a ghost. Haunting and haunted.

It’s twelve months after Stull Cemetery, and everything and nothing reminds Dean of Sam.

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language, so if there are any mistakes feel free to point them out! I'm samanddeanandtheimpalamakesthree on Tumblr! Come drop me a message if you want to scream at me about wincest (top!dean/bottom!sam only!)! Thanks for reading!


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